Fireworks will begin with an 8 a.m. Senate Health and Human Services committee meeting, where lawmakers are expected to try to add the substance of the original foster care privatization bill (made a shadow of its former self by a House committee) to HB 990, which would require Legislative approval to expand Medicaid.

At 8:30 a.m., the Senate Regulated Industries Committee will take up HB 291, sponsored by state Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, which would strip Secretary of State Brian Kemp of yet another portion of his licensing duties – the state Board of Accountancy.

Among the bills expected to be voted up or down in the Senate today s HB 965, which would provide amnesty for people who seek help for drug overdoses. The bill was amended in a Senate committee to include a provision that would allow consumers to buy prescription medications from big online pharmacies not based in Georgia.

Republicans only preach the virtues of small government when they're on the sidelines. Same thing happens on the national level. Republicans in Congress and Senate clamor for "small" government but forget that the government actually grew by A LOT during the last Republican administration vs. the current one.

Spending more tax dollars on mayors, councilmen, law enforcement, code enforcement, fire protection and signage is the antithesis of "less government." The disconnect we see from the creation of a half dozen new metro governments is impossible to fathom.

The complaint, as it is understood is that the county government was unresponsive. The solution, as has been shown in other jurisdictions is consolidation, rather than fracture.

Now, anyone knows it would never happen, but think about this:

What if they consolidate Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and Clayton into one county. Assign all major services to the county with city based divisions. They could build a subway system with the savings - and only one council would have to vote on it.

@Bernie31@NWGALWe only took over planning, public works, parks and the police enforcement. We still pay for our schools, fire, libraries etc as a county resident does. We rarely saw a Dekalb police officer on patrol. Public works projects by the County...where? When?

@hamiltonAZ Have a metro area like Baltimore...the city of Baltimore is the "hole of the doughnut" which is Baltimore County...it works.

But here in Brookhaven I have a council person who represents 12,000 people while with the county we had one commissioner for every 140,000. Now which style of government is more available and responsive????

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